What Our Schools Need

Education is in my blood. My mom was a teacher, my aunts, my sister-in-law, and now my daughter.  Since 1990 I have had several different jobs in the educational field. I’ve been a teacher, a grant writer, a school board member, a curriculum supervisor for the state’s school board association, a volunteer coordinator, and public relations person. This week I resigned and my plans are to be a full-time mom, nana, writer and education advocate.

I don’t know how you feel about public education but for what it’s worth, here are some of my thoughts.

(1) Public schools are a reflection of mainstream America and if we don’t like what we see and don’t do something now, tomorrow may be too late.

(2) Too much is expected of classroom teachers and the pressure and stress that results from these expectations causes many of the best and brightest to leave the teaching field at a time when they are the most needed.

(3) Teachers are under appreciated, over worked, and under paid.

It just doesn’t make sense to me that we can pay professional athletes and coaches millions of dollars while many teachers have to work two (or even three) jobs to make ends meet. In Kentucky, where I live, teachers are required to have their masters degree (which you have to pay for yourself) and no matter how much education they attain, most will never make what men and women with similar educational backgrounds in comparable occupations will make.

The unfair expectations of teachers extends to school leadership as well. School principals are expected to attend most after school functions and the number of hours they put in (especially at the secondary level) are astronomical. I talked to a high school principal last night who was on their way home from a football game. It was ten at night, cold and drizzly rain had been falling all day. She was wet, cold and tired. After an exhausting week at work she spent her Friday night at football game supervising students. Those of you who know me know I’m talking about my sister-in-law. Even though she’s the most energetic go-getter I know, I worry about her.

I worry about everyone in public education today, but I especially worry about the students. For many kids these tired, over worked and underpaid folks are their life line. They are the person who smells nice, gives hugs and high fives, and encourages them to do their best. They are their chance at a better future and a brighter tomorrow. In the county where I live 75% of our students are on free/reduced lunch and we have one of the highest unemployment rates in the state. For many of our kids school is the one place where kids can count on a hot  meal and some form of brain stimulation other than the television.

The bad economy has made it harder for schools to meet even the most basic needs of students: to feed and transport them. Hard times mean fewer dollars make it to the classroom for teachers to meet even some of the expectations that the educational powers that be tell them they must achieve. “All students must be proficient by 2012,”  they say. Tell that to a science teacher who doesn’t even have a decent microscope in her classroom, or a librarian who hasn’t been able to buy new library books or computer software for the last ten years.

We can’t keep expecting more and investing less. We have a lot of problems in this country but one of the biggest is as close as your neighborhood school.

So what’s is the answer? The problem is too big and too complicated for this mom and nana to conquer but I have a notion that if every mom and every nana started going to school board meetings, parent/teacher conferences (even if your child or grandchild is in middle or high school and say they don’t want you—go anyway!) and volunteering, we could make a difference. If every mom and every nana contacted their state legislators and congressmen and said “How can I help you improve the schools in our state?” and then worked hard to change them,  something might happen. MomPower and NanaPower combined would create more energy than a nuclear power plant!

And my final thought on the subject: If we save our schools we might just end up saving society, but if we allow our public schools to fail it will be impossible to save society.